Province restores $50 million to Alberta universities and colleges

EDMONTON - New funding of $50 million for Alberta’s post-secondary schools is “too little, too late” to make up for earlier provincial cuts to academia, opposition parties charged Wednesday in linking the move to Premier Alison Redford’s upcoming leadership vote.

The money restores about one third of the $147 million that was dropped from advanced education grants during the spring budget, an insufficient gesture to help schools who have already taken steps to cut staff, limit enrolment and reduce programs, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith said.

“Adding back a token amount, after giving such mixed message to the leaders in our advanced education institutions, it’s disrespectful and shows the government doesn’t have a handle on this file,” she said. “All of the post-secondary institutions needed to have this answer before they started their school year, before they started having to increase class sizes or raise marks to get into programs, or cancel or suspend programs.”

Advanced Education Minister Thomas Lukaszuk said this week was the earliest date possible to restore some funding, as the province had to wait until it was sure its financial situation was improving.

He said the cuts in the spring were necessary to deal with a huge budget shortfall, but that the government always intended to put some money back when it could.

“We said this is our No. 1 priority, that the moment we had any spare change we will reinvest,” Lukaszuk said. “I made a promise and I delivered.”

He said the money will be split among 20 universities, colleges and technical institutes, including a share of $14.4 million for the University of Alberta and $10.6 million for the University of Calgary.

MacEwan University will receive $2.6 million, while NAIT gets $3.7 million and Athabasca University gets $970,000.

How the money is spent will be up to each school, though it must be used to address enrolment pressure.

“You go on your knees to Treasury Board and ask for what you can, but this is definitely a satisfying announcement. Fifty million dollars will significantly alleviate some of the pressures our post-secondary institutions were feeling,” Lukaszuk said. “It will allow them to bring in new students in January if they choose, or it will finance over-enrolment they may have already incurred.”

At the U of A, administrators have been grappling with a $28-million cut this year followed by a $56-million cut in 2014-15. The university has so far offered buyouts to professors and has indicated that entrance standards for science students could be raised, among other measures to deal with the shortfall.

Acting provost Martin Ferguson-Pell said the added funding announced Wednesday will help the U of A “preserve a lot of really important programs here that would otherwise have been at risk.”

He said it will probably take a couple of weeks before all the deans are consulted and decisions are made on which programs will be the biggest beneficiaries.

Adam Woods, vice-president external for the U of A Students’ Union, said he hopes the money can go to retain some of the professors set to depart, and restore enrolment in science.

“This is just a first step. There still needs to be more reinvestment from the province to restore funding to where it was before the cuts.”

Across the river at MacEwan University, president David Atkinson said his school has not had to cut enrolment but is under pressure to increase spaces in high-demand programs such as nursing. The university is dealing with a budget reduction of $15.8 million largely by not filling vacant positions.

“We will spend some time thinking about the best use of these (new) funds,” he said. “We will be looking very carefully at how we can grow our students’ numbers, but if we take them, we have to be assured we can provide a quality experience for them.”

Opposition parties said the announcement of the extra funding is conveniently close to the Progressive Conservative convention in two weeks, when Redford will face a vote on her leadership of the party.

The government has been taking a beating from the public over its initial cuts to academia, so the premier now needs “a couple of wins” to ensure she survives the vote, Smith said.

“This government couldn’t run a lemonade stand,” NDP Leader Brian Mason said in question period, while Liberal MLA Kent Hehr said the province had thrown the education sector into “chaos.”

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